This article by Peggy A. Ertmer and Timothy Newby, “Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing Critical Features From an Instructional Design Perspective” discusses three central learning theories, behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism, and compares their key features from several instructional design perspectives.
Understanding each of these three concepts created a challenge for me, as I may not have been able to remember everything due to a large amount of reading. So for this article, I am phasing in a mind map format to give me a basic idea of the whole article.
I strongly agree with the article’s discussion of behaviourism, that learning results from a conditioned response and that the learning environment provided by the teacher should have appropriate stimulus and feedback to facilitate learning. Repetitive training should be conducted to achieve the desired outcome. At the same time, I agree with the effectiveness of this view, as well as the expectations. It seems very reasonable that when better work is done, it is rewarded and when it is not done better, it is punished. But ethically, I think it’s a form of animal training, which I find hard to accept.
The idea of constructivism, which feels overly optimistic to me, is that in constructivist theory, learners need to construct their own system of knowledge by interacting with others and engaging in practice in real situations. Students are guided by this theory to engage in an immersive “apprenticeship” experience, gaining experience and confidence. However, in my opinion, this is very difficult and not all students are suited to go directly into work situations, which can be confusing and even lead to low confidence. Constructivism involves interacting with other students, which can be very challenging for some silent students. On top of that, there are already many group discussion sessions in the world where some students are low self-esteem, lazy or some other emotions and refuse to have a discussion, which is negative for both students.
In the last semester of my studies, I was involved in a field school teaching activity. They also adopted constructivism and the initial learning experience was very painful for me. Because I am a non-native speaker, basic communication was extremely stressful for me. Although after four months of study, my English level and my understanding of the major had improved a lot. In my opinion, the constructivist emphasis on immersion experience may be very powerful for a student to improve, but it may also cause many negative effects, such as the growth of an inferiority complex. How to manage the scale of this is a matter of great discussion.
Hi Yufei, I like your ideas about constructivism. The emphasis on immersive experiences has had a great impact on me. As a non-native speaker myself, I have devoted a significant amount of effort and time to learning the language and trying to integrate into the local culture. Initially, I could only engage in short conversations, but I felt happy because I was making progress every day. Constructivism can indeed greatly enhance a student’s learning experience as long as they can overcome the initial difficulties and eventually feel the joy of learning.
Thank you for your reply, I believe we can all achieve success together. As second language learners, we are at an inherent disadvantage here, and it is a topic for discussion as to how to be more successful in our learning.
Hello Yufei, great blog. There are many examples around us of whether a student’s good or bad grades do not determine his future success in the workplace. That’s why a student having good practical experience is essential for future jobs.
Thanks for sharing. While I think a lot of reading assignments are a hard thing to do while I think constructivism is a great way to help us learn on our own while having a group discussion model to hold us back from completing tasks!
Thank you for sharing and I agree with you that sometimes reading a lot of content is a very difficult thing to do and I agree with your definition of the three. Also, your story about your own constructivism is the same as my initial feelings. But I think we’ll get better as we get used to it!
Hi Yufei, I’m Zhongbao Ji, you can also call me Tim. I’m very glad that you can share your valuable experience. As an ESL, I also fell into a situation similar to yours. Fortunately, I met a group of passionate people Kind people helped me through that miserable time. I very much agree with your views on behaviourism, because I also think that behaviourism treats people like animals. I believe that behaviourism cannot explain individual differences in human learning, differences in learning styles, and the impact of personality on learning, but it does. It is a choice that can help students get high scores, so I think it is best to reduce the test link in the courses we create, reduce the proportion of exams, and increase the proportion of ideological communication between teachers and students.